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Important anniversaries in 2020: The first Earth Day in 1970

Lynne Baab • Friday March 6 2020

When I think of what has happened in the 50 years since the first Earth Day, I feel deep gratitude and profound grief. And when I think of this gorgeous fragile earth which reflects the beauty of its Creator, I also feel deep gratitude and profound grief.

I am grateful for Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring alerted the world to the dangers of synthetic pesticides. Silent Spring was one of the triggers for the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. I’m grateful that the first Earth Day was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and more than 20 million...

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Important anniversaries in 2020: Women got the vote 100 years ago

Lynne Baab • Friday February 28 2020

When we arrived in New Zealand in 2007, it was a rare moment when the prime minister and chief justice were both women. In addition, a few other important government offices and business leadership positions were held by women. In several discussions of this unusual pattern, Kiwis boasted to us that New Zealand gave women the right to vote before any other country, in 1893. In the United States, that date is August 18, 1920, when the 19th amendment to the constitution was ratified.

I’m honored to have lived in the country where women got the vote first, but for either the...

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Important anniversaries in 2020: Prohibition

Lynne Baab • Saturday February 22 2020

In 1880, a woman named Agatha lived in a small town in Kansas. Agatha had a millinery shop, so she knew many of the women in town. Agatha also had a limp, caused by permanent damage to her hip when her father knocked her down a flight of stairs at age 9. Her father was drunk at the time.

A temperance advocate, Drusilla Wilson, visited Agatha’s town to recruit women to fight for prohibition of alcohol. Agatha signed up because of her own story, and because she knew so many of the stories of the women in town. Too many of them...

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Grief AND thankfulness: What I learned from writing this series

Lynne Baab • Thursday February 13 2020

My husband Dave and I were talking about this series of blog posts, and he said, “You know, every single day there are things I grieve and things I’m thankful for. . . . Every day.” I agreed with him, and then I began wondering, why does this feel so revolutionary?

This series of posts has revealed my deep-seated adoption of a set of values – from my parents and from the wider culture – that have been destructive to me. My thinking has been skewed my whole life. I truly believed my parents’ approach to life: if you do things right,...

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